He
cracked open a deep breath and set it free
maybe he was only ever pencilled in
hastily scrawled between the lines in another’s
hand
a fragile loyalty hidden in the creases of a
well-thumbed page
never making his mark in a bruised-blue ink
on that magnetic north-south divide
but
the pain was searing, like a horse’s bite
she
learned to lip-read the voices in his head
knowing he’d only let go of her hand to
pass the pencil
the one he’d kept for years, safe and
warm in his inside pocket
the same one used so many times before to write
his name on top of hers
and to draw down the moon on a string
and
out of the blues, a betrayal set in
from
nowhere she pulled a cutting edge
while he remained still, never once flexing
muscle
a misplaced loyalty charging the silence
while she sharpened and sharpened
to emphasise the point
calmly,
she drew his blood
and stood by, watching, emotionless
knowing it would seep through the confidence
cracks
gorge and fatten on low self esteem
and starve a lingering fondness
to a slow and painful death
nothing
is permanent, everything temporary
outdrawn
by malevolence and uncomfortably numb
he drew his own conclusion
in spat-out silence and soiled regret
the night is always at its darkest just before
the dawn
point
taken, he knew where to draw the line
and brilliantly wrote himself off
leaving words to die where they’d fallen
and his open heart to burn out on the funeral
pyre
